US high-school students are taking physics in unprecedented numbers. And the upward trend in enrollments is likely to continue. These and other findings from a new statistics study by the American Institute of Physics were presented in January at a joint meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Astronomical Society in Seattle.
In 2005 33% of all graduating high-school seniors had taken a physics class, up from 20% in 1987. “Now more than half of four-year college- and university-bound students take it,” says Michael Neuschatz, coauthor of the AIP study. “When we look at the forces that are propelling the rise, it looks like the rise will continue.”
Those forces include states’ raising the science requirement for graduation, colleges and universities increasingly using tough courses such as physics in deciding who to admit, and tight competition compelling college-bound students to enhance their transcripts by taking physics,...
